FridayNightListeners - June 2022

Friday, June 3 :?A*Teens - Dancing Queen

Friday, June 10:?Cutting Crew - (I just) Died In Your Arms

Friday, June 17:?Soul II Soul - Back to life

Friday, June 24:?Joe Cocker - Summer In The City

Dear #FridayNightListeners,

For this summary, I thought about whether there was actually a common thread in June. But I didn't really find anything either, but such a concept of a "red thread" per month doesn't exist in the series at all. At least not planned in theory. The series is too diverse - at least that's the goal - in terms of music, themes, stories and thus trigger events. And while the one or other post lies in stockpile and could be published at any time, some posts also arise at very short notice, sometimes still in the night from Thursday to Friday. If you want so, perhaps it was some "events" in June that influenced the song selection: The Queen's Jubilee, a visit at ZDF Fernsehgarten, the return of many to the office / increasing professional travel activities and the beginning of summer 2022 in the northern hemisphere.

Maybe one or the other expected a song which addresses Pride Month? To be honest, the song was chosen and the lyrics roughly drafted - but in the end I decided against. Why? Well, the topic is too important to deserve attention only in one month and then disappear into oblivion again for 11 months. As so many companies and individuals talked about it in June, for honest and not so honest reasons, I deliberately decided to publish in another month than June.

Friday, June 3

So, at the beginning of June, the event for the Brits. The 70th anniversary of the Queen's throne. All of London was on their feet. And although I'm not particularly interested in royalty stuff, FridayNightListeners couldn't help to avoid this event. Rumor has it that "Dancing Queen" is the monarch's favorite song, so it was a logical choice. Less natural, by the way, was the choice of artists.?

In 1998, at a dance school in Sweden, a team of record label executives convened to audition a group of 100 teenagers for a project they called the “ABBA Teens,” an homage to Sweden’s most popular musical export. The name “ABBA” was owned by the record company at that time. So Niklas Berg, the marketing manager of Stockholm Records asked:" 'Could we do this? Because we are not ABBA.' The answer was, 'Yes, but you have to talk to Bj?rn [Ulvaeus from ABBA].' So I had a very short meeting with Bj?rn, and he said, 'Yeah, it sounds good. No problem.' A month later, there was an article in the Swedish papers saying, "[ABBA’s] Benny Andersson: This is not OK." And people came to me and said, "Are you stupid? How could you start ABBA without asking ABBA?" In the end, this was the perfect thing to happen because we took so much PR from ABBA that we were No. 1 on the single charts in Sweden. They all started talking about us. And we had to change the name.'"

Ultimately it was a good thing that the group's name was changed to the A*Teens - to avoid confusion. But this change also allowed the band more freedom in creating their own style of music and not be solely based around ABBA. In this case it was win-win, but generally, as a marketer you really have to think in advance about the name of a brand or product. From a legal perspective, from the scope and purpose of brand/product and the perception of the audience. If you do it right, you can feel like a Dancing Queen!

Friday, June 10

Cutting Crew was not a one-hit wonder, but to be honest, only "(I Just) Died in Your Arms" has stuck in the mind, right? The profound connoisseurs of 80s music - and I know there are some of them among you out there! - surely know "I've Been in Love Before" and "One for the Mockingbird" - but then it stops for most of you, doesn't it? This hit, whose lyrics were largely written in one hour and for which the demo took only three days, has not only brought an breakthrough success for the artists, but also for the record company!

Siren Records was a 1980s label which was part of Associated Virgin Labels Limited - a marketing company owned by Virgin Records Ltd. Virgin Records was founded in England in 1972 amongst other by Richard Branson but it wasn't until 1987 - 15 years later -?and the release of Cutting Crew's Broadcast album that Virgin broke through in the United States. Founder and singer Nick Van Eede once explained: "We were signed to Siren records which was part of Virgin so we were always a little bit on the outside but it was the '80s and they certainly put their money where their mouth was. We were flown to New York for the initial recordings of the album and this is where we got a great recording of 'I've Been In Love Before'. Then we were flown to Australia to shoot videos... all a bit crazy really. We gave them their first US #1 with "(I Just) Died In Your Arms"!

Friday, June 17

Publishing this one felt a bit odd to me, I have to admit. On April 27, a colleague of mine shared a post from another colleague in which he showed a picture from an real event. He sent it along with this message, "This inspired me to inspire you to write your next "Friday Listener" post.... "back to life...back to reality". That evening we chatted on LinkedIn about this and that, and it was pretty good to do so after a while, as he is not based in Frankfurt, but in London and is often "on the road". So, on May 1, I wrote the text, because actually the post was planned for May 6 - but then Eintracht Frankfurt was more important. See here and here ;-)

So I put it aside and it was published on June 17, ultimately. Almost two months later than he came up with the inspiration. And the reason why it felt strange: Well, in the meantime, infection rates have risen dramatically - and you don't have to be a scientist to understand that the reason for this was - amongst other reasons - also the old/new freedom and much more activity in personal and business life. Don't get me wrong - for many reasons I suppose, it was a good idea to re-start. But now, as I write these sentences, the incidence is even higher - and so are the death rates. And now it's summer! Remember 2021 - that's when the virus had seemingly disappeared, more or less. I must say, I'm a bit afraid of this fall. Maybe still war, definitely dealing with the aftermath, high inflation, energy shortages - and another lockdown? (Let me add, that this is all nothing compared to the people living in Ukraine!) But let's forget for a moment, let's give in to the illusion: Back to life...

Friday, June 24

Even with this post, I was almost a little uncomfortable. For two reasons:

1) That we celebrate the warm days and are happy about good weather is understandable. But these are no longer summers as we used to, it is simply much too dry in many places. In Germany, many forests are already so damaged by the dryness in combination with the bark beetle that a lot of trees have to be cut down. And just those missing trees make it even worse. and when you think of the future and your children and grandchildren, it already feels oppressive.

2) While the post and song is about sweating in the hot summer, well, you might wish for the sun and heat back in a few months. Due to the known reasons, gas could become (very) scarce in Europe and in Germany next winter; from today's point of view it cannot be ruled out, that also the supply of private households could be affected significantly, but more likely the industry, at least some sectors could be hit hard. And there are forecasts of a three- to fourfold (or even more) increase of the price for gas (and logically also products will see higher prices). I'm neither an industry expert nor an economist, but common sense tells us that energy will become more expensive in any case, noticeably. At least in the short to medium term, until renewable energies make it cheaper again in the medium to long term. So let's do everything we can to make progress. It's not so much that there's a lack of political or practical will, there's even enough money: it's just that there's a lack of materials and installation workers. So, for the next few weeks and months, let's enjoy the Summer In The City!?

As always, thank you for listening and engaging in June! The next #FridayNightListeners post is planned for tomorrow, Friday, July 8, 5pm (CEST) - stay tuned. As last month, some stats (as of July 6) for the ones interested in.